


Break Bread with Thy Enemies

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1366762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's tradition for Crowley to have dinner with his enemies. This is why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Bread with Thy Enemies

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death because you get real attached to this woman real quick. But you know it's coming.

The woman was stout, dark-skinned and aged, but taut in the face despite her years- Crowley remembers that much. She hadn’t even flinched as he’d approached her middle-of-nowhere Lousiana shack, just held onto the broken window sill for support of her bad leg. Not fear. The hellhounds that had been sent to collect on her contract (for her niece's illness... how quaint) were circling, pawing, barking irritably. Crowley stopped at her porch, disheveled from use, not neglect.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “...Demon?”

The hounds had congregated around him, still growling occasionally, but placated by their master’s presence. They would have their kill soon. He stuck out his hand and patted one on the head. “Evidently.”

The woman nodded, resigned, and did not speak.

Crowley lifted his eyes from the hound- one of his favourites, actually, half grown and already bigger than average- to the woman. “Congratulations on the ingenuity, but goofer dust doesn't do a thing for me.”

Another nod, curt and polite. “I figgured. Can’t hurt t’try?” She shrugged with a blooming smile- surprisingly pretty, every tooth intact despite overwhelmingly poor dental hygiene of the period. Her face dropped gradually, and she bit her cheek again, disappearing from the window. The door opened. and she glanced out around it, dejected. Crowley strode up the steps, hounds following eagerly, but pausing and sniffing at the line of dust. The demon crossed the threshold easily, and turned to her, dark eyes stuck to the floor somewhere behind him. She swallowed, and finally lifted the eyes: also rather pretty, if not scared at the moment. “It’s gonna hurt, ain't it?”

There was a moment before he responded, that he will never admit existed. “Horrifically.”

She glanced off, just before closing her eyes. “I’m not gon’ ask you to make it quick ‘cause I know y’won’ listen.”

“Never know unless you try.” he replied, rhetorically, and she was smart enough to understand that. He removed his hand from his pocket, tip of his middle finger already set on the pad of his thumb.

She was scared, but not of him. Just death itself. The black. There wasn't even resentment there- for Hell, for the hounds, for him. She was practically radiating benevolence, and as sickening as it was, that was also a real mood-killer.

Or at least, that’s what he would say if anyone asked.

“...Is that gumbo?” he asked, replacing the poised snap with a point towards the stove. He had to admit, the place smelled absolutely radiant.

She unclenched and raised her eyes slowly, carefully. She nodded, only barely, when she realized the hellspawn actually expected an answer.

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I've had gumbo?”

She shook her head, still cautious of his motivations (which well she should be). He flicked his gaze from the stove, to her, and then tilted his head the direction of the former expectantly.

The woman blinked, parted her lips, and scurried to the pot, turning off the heat.

Call it indulgence of gluttony. Nothing more.

They ate in silence. It was good gumbo; shrimp, celery, bell pepper, and onions. Her hand was trembling for the first three bites.

“...Shame there’s no garlic,” he said, and she nearly dropped her spoon, “or it would be the Holy Trinity.”

The fear on her face cracked up into a sad smile, and she chuckled. “Leaves room for the spice.” she replied. She wasn't shaking.

Under the table, Crowley’s free hand flicked gently, kicking up the wind ever-so-slowly until it was disturbing just the top-most of topsoil. “It’s good.”

The woman- he hadn't bothered to check her name, but it struck him as Margaret for some reason- froze. Then smiled, cordially. Maybe a little fearfully. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and by the way,” he said, a moment before the last grain of dust blew away and the dogs rushed in to claim her soul, “you have a lovely smile. You know that?”

If anyone were to ask (which no one ever had, he being the King of the Crossroads, and no one ever would, he being the King of Hell, now), Crowley would say something about how boring it is to steal hope from the hopeless. How thoroughly entertaining it was to watch that smile- literally- ripped from her face. He finished the gumbo with the company of an empty seat, an unsatisfied dog still picking at shreds, while the other silently begged attention or table-scraps from viscera-soaked jaws and antsy paws on gorey floorboards.

Crowley didn't think she was very pretty anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I want nothing more in life than art of that last frame.


End file.
